plasq.com – Skitch – Snap, Draw, ShareYour friends are global… you can send them links… but what if the action is on your screen? … Point out a quick suggestion to a colleague or pass on that funny moment from an IM chat, post images to MySpace, eBay, forums or via email..Skitch is the Internet age’s Camera and it Rocks!There are many ways to take screen shots of your desktop, from a quick series of keystrokes, to 3rd party tools of varying levels of ability and complexity. But even with advanced tools, any editing beyond cropping and resizing will require another program, and then another will be needed to share it.The developers at Plasq saw the need for a better tool, and the result is Skitch, a veritable Swiss Army knife of functionality – from capturing, to editing, and finally, uploading or embedding. Take a screen shot, crop the picture, resize it by dragging the corners of the window, draw on the picture, add some text, drag and drop it to your desktop, upload it to Flickr, insert it in your LiveJournal/MySpace/WordPress post, share it through the Skitch website, drag and drop it into an email, share it through almost any social networking site, save it as a PNG, JPG, SVG, PDF, TIF, or the native Skitch format, then view all your other screen captures in the History window – all from Skitch. Skitch can also upload to an FTP server, or share via WebDav. It’s freakin’ sweet!Like many sweet things, it’s only available for the Mac. Try out Skitch, and let us know what you think.

Besides all the other great reasons to use WordPress as a Content Management System- here’s yet another: You won’t have to worry about getting sued for not being accessible to the blind. Because WordPress adheres to W3C standards- and uses clean CSS, if your theme is done correctly- your site will meet all ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) requirements- something that Target is learning the expensive way:

Judge Allows Class action Lawsuit over Target web site

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A federal judge in California has allowed a class-action lawsuit to proceed against Target Corp brought by plaintiffs claiming the discount retailer’s Web site is inaccessible to the blind.

The ruling allows blind individuals, who say that many other retailers have designed their Web sites to be accessible through special software that vocalizes online content, to join collectively in the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs contend that the company does not allow them full and equal access to Target stores because they cannot obtain online product and sales information.

The decision, made public on Tuesday by Judge Marilyn Patel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, also rejected Target’s motion for summary judgment in the case.

“This is a tremendous step forward for blind people throughout the country who for too long have been denied equal access to the Internet economy,” Marc Maurer, president of the National Federation for the Blind, said in a statement following Tuesday’s ruling.

The federation, which has more than 50,000 members, says that the Web sites of many other retailers, including Target’s larger rival, Wal-Mart Stores Inc, have been made accessible to blind shoppers who use screen reading software to access the Internet.

If you want to business with the Federal Government- they also require your site to be ADA compliant. If you don’t know how a blind person uses the Web- I highly recommend watching one- and learning how screen reader software works. Also, if your site works for blind people, it also has a better chance at working with mobile devices as well.

WordPress isn’t just for blogs- in fact, the word blog needs to die. WordPress builds a website- actively served, using a sophisticated Content Management System that is easy to use. It’s so easy- that smart companies are starting to use it to manage content and keep their site up-to-date, and W3C compliant for a lot less money.

Here are some of the sites we’ve found using WordPress as a back end. To verify- you just type /wp-admin after the url.

• http://www.xxlmag.com/ home isn’t WP, but it all leads to interior pages managed by WP.
  
• http://autoshows.ford.com/
• http://wildscotsman.com/whisky/ must be of age to view
• http://redblock.com.au/
• http://whoisjengordon.com/
• http://agenturblog.de/
• http://www.deliciousdays.com/
• http://allthingsd.com/
• http://www.2checkout.com/
• http://www.houseofnaked.com/ (it’s an ad agency- don’t worry)

Some, more than others look like a more conventional site. The point is, data from a database can be formatted anyway you want. The key is understanding the real beauty of a WordPress site is that everything offers the ability to build community.